


iron blood

by ceraunos



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Courting Rituals, Fae & Fairies, Fae Jaskier | Dandelion, M/M, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22977655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceraunos/pseuds/ceraunos
Summary: It’s inevitable that it would’ve happened, sooner or later. He’d imagined that it would be at the hands of some mercenary or a hunter, though. He presses his eyes closed, hissing against the smell of burning flesh as it tears through his throat.In which Jaskier pretends Geralt doesn't know anything, and Geralt tries to court a fae.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 38
Kudos: 560





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A drabble prompt fill for 'but I’ve never told you that before' for crushcandles on tumblr which got a bit out of hand. Just adding to the Fae!Jaskier fic collection.

**1.**

Brittle grass snaps under twisting fingers, made tough by sun and heat, and all the things Jaskier’s bones have waited so long to know. He presses each curve of his spine into the dirt, and feels the earth press back until it sings through him. The late afternoon feels bronzed and slow, and even against the faint insistence of silver still stinging in his ears, fresh sweat sticking between his shirt and skin, and Geralt’s eyes trained curiously on him, he can’t bring himself to care enough to move yet. He opens his eyes and blinks against the not-yet-setting sun.

‘We can’t stay here,’ Geralt says, as blood dries at his hairline.

‘Sun’s almost down, they won’t be back. Although, what she was doing out this late in the day anyway I don’t know, you’d think a noonwraith would be a bit more punctual. Arrive at, y’know, _noon_.’

‘There’ll be other things, this whole village is a mass grave.’

Jaskier doesn’t miss the way Geralt touches a quick finger to the medallion around his neck. He’s been doing it a lot more than usual, lately, and something inside Jaskier twists with a wordless piercing for every press of skin to metal.

They’re already far out of the ghost village before lights start to fill windows again, and even further before Geralt finally says,

‘I didn’t tell you they were noonwraiths.’

‘Huh,’ Jaskier mutters, and looks only towards the moon blooming on the horizon. ‘I must have picked it up from a story somewhere else, then.’

From the corner of his eye, he sees Geralt breath out a silent hum and sighs.

**2.**

It’s inevitable that it would’ve happened, sooner or later.

He’d imagined that it would be at the hands of some mercenary or a hunter, savvy enough to know what to look for and looking for a rough trade and high coin. Jaskier is _valuable_ if you know the right people.

He’d hoped it would be a rusty nail on a floorboard, sticking out just too far, tripped over, or impaled upon, but small enough to brace through and pretend it never happened.

Instead Roach startles, shifting suddenly as Geralt breaks the first of the warped clinches on her broken shoe, and Jaskier’s hand on her ankle slips, just a centimetre or so, but it’s enough. Hot white pain splinters through him blindingly, as he tightens his fingers around the dull metal. He presses his eyes together, hissing against the smell of burning flesh as it tears through his throat.

He can vaguely hear Geralt murmuring to Roach, trying to keep her still as she bucks against Jaskier’s grip to no avail.

‘I’m sorry girl, I know, I know it’s wrong, _I’m wrong,_ but we’ve got to get this fang out of your foot and I can’t let you go yet,’ Jaskier whispers through the ringing filling his ears and hopes he’s quiet enough that Geralt can’t hear. He doesn’t add _we can’t let Geralt know_ but he presses his forehead into Roach’s knee and hopes she understands.

Somehow, in the midst of it, Geralt has managed to get the chisel around more of the clinches until there’s only a couple left, pressing into the pad of Jaskier’s thumb. He’ll have to move it, to let Geralt take them out, except he isn’t sure he can; it’s as if he’s been welded to the metal, seared on with the pain still rocketing through him.

‘Jaskier,’ Geralt is asking, voice swimming through the thickness clouding Jaskier’s mind. ‘Jaskier, I have to – move your fingers.’

He feels it, the moment Geralt touches him. It flashes through him like a static shock, a single moment searing through the pain. It’s enough to break it, though. He lets go.

Crouching on shaking knees he forces himself to stay steady, grits his teeth until he feels them grind like chalk, and does not collapse. He blinks, and when he opens his eyes the world stays dark. He doesn’t pass out, so much as gets lost in the swirling residue forcing its way through every vein in him. It will end, he knows this, it will run its path and fade as all pains do, and slowly, slowly, he realises Geralt has taken the final clinches out and is already working the shoe free from the fang embedded through it.

It comes to him, a moment too late, the thought to wonder if Geralt felt the shock, too. 

‘We’re fine now, I can do this alone from here,’ Geralt is saying to him, and perhaps that’s an answer. Except Jaskier can’t work out which answer it is, and Geralt is already turning back to Roach, cleaning out the wound, and Jaskier just finally – stops.

~

He wakes to haze somewhere before the beginning of dawn, turns to vomit and finds he’s been propped up against a tree which is… unusual. The sudden hospitality brings a wave of fresh nausea of another kind, bitter iron bubbling at the back of his throat. His head throbs, and through it frantic panic forms thought, _Geralt, did he, does, does Geralt know?_

He forces air in and chokes on it, swallows around the ashen taste on his tongue, and then tries to breathe again. Shallow gasps fill the space around him. It’s only then that he notices his hand, the blistering, angry and red, blooming across it and – oh – it _hurts_. It’s fresh though, unlikely it looked this bad earlier, and Jaskier thanks whatever might be out there for small mercies.

Experimentally he drags focus from the depths of his exhausted mind, scrabbling on consciousness enough to watch with relief as a veil closes over the red; it isn’t healed – even he can’t do that – but the impression should hold enough for now, even if the burning ache won’t fade.

He’s drifting again, swaying towards restless sleep, when he catches movement to the side of him. Peering through the darkness he realises Geralt is only a metre or so away, pressing into a sleeping Roach’s flank. The movement he can see is Geralt’s hand, carding slowly through her mane.

Jaskier ignores the flash of unreasonable jealousy that spikes from nowhere he cares to think about tonight, or any night. He’s exhausted, so very tired, and it doesn’t matter anyway, because surely now this is the end of all things for him.

Except he hears Geralt mutter,

‘We’ll leave once it’s light. The next town isn’t more than a day away, we’ll rest Roach there.’

So perhaps the jury is stayed until then, he thinks with the vague relief of a man clinging to driftwood while drowning, as the darkness swallows him again.

**3.**

It’s not long after that the first gift appears.


	2. Chapter 2

The day dawns with heat already blooming in pockets of air that flicker in and out between the trees, dancing in shaded spots. Jaskier wakes to an exhausted throbbing that pulses through him from the arches of his feet right to his gums, and _oh_ he thinks as his tongue catches on the tip of a short, sharp tooth. That shouldn’t –

‘Jaskier,’ he hears Geralt call, but even when he twists he can’t see him in the clearing; can’t see much, actually, just shapes and blurs swirling out of view as he tries to focus on them.

He presses a palm against the dirt ground and steadies himself against the vibrating hum he gets back in reply.

‘Jaskier,’ Geralt says again, and now Jaskier can see him, hovering at the edge of the trees, fingers worrying the medallion around his neck.

Something that tastes bitter and and sticky swoops through Jaskier’s stomach and up to the bile rising in his throat. _So,_ he thinks, _it’s time,_ and steels himself against whatever is about to happen now.

Except Geralt just nods towards the ground beside Jaskier, where there’s a small bundle of food he hadn’t noticed before; bread and cheese, half an apple, even a couple of dates, all things Jaskier assumed they’d run out of days ago.

‘You should eat,’ Geralt gestures. ‘We’re leaving soon.’

It’s hardly something special, but it’s far from nothing, and laid out like this, careful and deliberate, it feels like it could be... could be something _more_. Something else. Jaskier clamps down on the instinctive warmth the half formed thought brings, because it _isn’t._

Instead he rips a date in half, feeling the tear of still sharp teeth.

It isn’t.

Yet, as he swallows down the sticky sweetness, it feels like it _should_ be.

~

Geralt watches Jaskier chew at the last of the fruit out of the corner of his eye while he distractedly fastens Roach’s saddle, and wonders if he’s perhaps he’s seeing things that aren’t there. It’s a Witcher’s prerogative, to look for the monster in everything.

When he looks away though, just for a moment, it seems as if the air around Jaskier blurs, and in the mirage someone else – something else – is sitting picking at their food. Something that isn’t quite _him_ anymore. Geralt blinks and the air settles again as if not even a breeze had disturbed it. Even still, Geralt finds his fingers wander to the chain around his neck still humming unevenly.

~

_Geralt feels eyes on him even before he registers the faint buzzing of his medallion, muted through thick armour. It itches, like burnt skin peeling along the back of his neck. It’s hardly unusual and yet, as he stares into the sops of his hour old ale, it doesn’t fade, doesn’t flicker._

_He notices._

_The bard spins, twirling into tables and spilling something sticky over the floor without seeming to notice as he keeps on singing, and Geralt grits his teeth because it’s loud and brash, and he can’t stop **noticing**. _

_The bard watches._

_Even as he flirts and flings himself at some unsuspecting girl, he doesn’t stop watching, eyes not quite leaving Geralt, even while he jumps up again, dodges out of the way of the landlord’s broom, and laughs, the sound tripping over itself._

_Geralt notices._

_It’s been a long, long time since Geralt has noticed anyone, particularly not like this, particularly not a common bard in an inn at the edge of the world. Still, he notices, and perhaps it’s just the light, or the terrible ale, and perhaps with a quick fuck behind the barn he’ll forget it all, but still, he notices._

~

The town they’re heading for, where rumour says there’s a man who’ll craft a new shoe for Roach, isn’t far away. Except they’re only an hour or so on to the road before the bodies appear; tied to posts and improvised gibbets, half mangled and pale the flutter like ghostly abominations in the breeze. The stench of death drifts over rolling fields, and Geralt can see Jaskier press the inside of his wrist to his mouth, gasping at it.

A single feather twisted between the matted blood of man’s gouged stomach glints in the sunlight, the silver of it like wrought iron. Jaskier coughs, and he looks almost as pale as the corpses. Geralt presses Roach on, holding an arm out for Jaskier to swing himself up with; the bard sways as he whispers his thanks, and Geralt presses Roach harder still.

~

_‘You must have some review,’ he says. ‘Three words or less.’_

_His eyes – so blue they’re almost silver – watch him and they’re not careful. They press daringly into Geralt’s skin, looking at him and though him and Geralt suppresses a shudder. It’s the same way they’d watched him all the way across the room._

_He waits. Faintly, through the thickness of his armour, his medallion hums, and he realises belatedly it’s been humming for a while now. Perhaps the whole time._

_'They don’t exist.’_

_‘What don’t exist?’_

_When he leans forward, for a single hair-breath of a second, there’s a blur that starts and stops around the bard, as if he hasn’t moved at all, rather everything else has slipped around him instead. It’s imperceptible. Geralt blinks and in an instant the feeling of vague, displaced nausea fades to the background, as if it never existed._

_‘The creatures in your song.’_

_His medallion hums, and he threads his fingers together to stop them reaching up to touch._

_The bard speaks but his eyes don’t move._

_Geralt notices. Perhaps if he leaves now, if he rides hard, he’ll reach some less reputable establishment before dawn. Somewhere with bodies that don’t demand to be noticed._

_‘I know who you are.’_

_Blue eyes so cold they’re almost silver watch, and they’re not careful._

_Geralt notices, and his medallion hums._

_‘You’re the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia.’_

_It’s not hard to know who he is, even here, at the edge of the world. Still, as an entire tavern of eyes turn to stare, there’s still only one pair watching him leave._

**~**

Jaskier stares at the back of Geralt’s neck and tries not to fall off Roach as he sways under the midmorning heat which creeps down the back of his shirt and prickles at over-sensitive skin. He coughs, but the dusty, charcoal smell of death doesn’t dislodge from his throat.

He floats on the knife edge of pain, a deep exhaustion lingering in what feels like every part of him. Distantly he knows it isn’t normal, knows that this should be over by now. He closes his eyes and hums until he can’t feel anything but the brush of heavy air and the warm, solidity of Geralt’s waist under his palms.

**~**

Almost as soon as they hit the town, everything inside Geralt itches to leave. He stares at the noticeboard and reads blindly, waiting for the fresh wave of rotting heat and dirt to pass. The smell of it – of everything – drifts around each crevice of the town, between flagstones and inside old wood. It’s no different to any other place, except in the thickness of midsummer he feels as if he’s dancing at the edge of tipping through into screaming.

He knows they have to stop, though, even if Jaskier – who is whittling on to Roach behind him in an endless melody of nonsense – had insisted otherwise. He hides it well, but Geralt hasn’t missed the way, when he thinks he isn’t looking, he’s still pale and drawn, shivering despite the sun he so clearly basks in usually.

Besides, Roach still needs a proper new shoe fitting, Geralt reasons.

‘Anything?’ Jaskier asks, and touches Geralt’s arm so lightly it’s like a feather coming in to land.

‘Perhaps,’ he says, then sees Jaskier re-shouldering his bag and pauses, watches the tightening of his expression in tiny, almost imperceptible creases. ‘I’ll ask tomorrow.’

‘Oh,’ Jaskier says, brow furrowing, ‘We don’t have to –’

He’s interrupted by Roach snorting loudly down Geralt’s neck, nicking at his ear impatiently. There’s a faint mischief in her eye, and Jaskier must see it, because it draws a gentle laugh from the bard; full of softly tired undertones, but more than Geralt’s heard in days and he finds himself smiling into it.

‘ _Hmm,’_ he says eyeing Roach with a look that tries to be stern as he bats her head away. ‘We have other plans, it seems.’

~

It’s hot, so hot Geralt can feel the drips of sweat collecting on the base of his spine, trickling over skin like a persistent itch. The furnace at the centre of the room spits and coughs and clouds the room with umber smoke that licks around him.

‘Oh ay,’ the dwarf who’s more beard than man – or perhaps woman – says, squinting at the twisted warped metal of Roach’s shoe and nods. ‘She’ll need a new ’un, that’s certain.’

In the corner of his eye, standing in the doorway, the shadow of Jaskier sways slightly. Geralt should have told him to stay behind, to get them some rooms, or anything else, but then he’d been walking in step and Geralt hadn’t known the words, the way to say it, and so he hadn’t.

‘You can do it? Make one exactly the same?’

The dwarf scoffs at the question. ‘You’re not my first Witcher. Don’t worry yourself lad.’

Geralt isn’t sure whether he wants to laugh or spit at the idea of being called lad; except he doesn’t have time to do either. In the yard, Roach brays – loud and sudden – and Geralt turns just a fraction too late to fling himself forward, fingertips only just skimming the gravel below before the crown of Jaskier’s head scrapes at it. His body barely makes a sound as it falls.

~

Jaskier blinks, and swallows hard against the ringing – pulsing – wrapping itself around the inside of his head. He thinks he might be shivering, but he feels as if he’s on fire. The room swims around him, the thick vibrating feel of it and, oh gods, _the smell of it_ , like blood and stone drowning him.

Someone’s fingers – Geralt’s perhaps, he wonders faintly – press questioningly to his jaw, but when he tries to speak it comes out hissed and gurgling and he isn’t sure he’s making any noise at all. His tongue gets stuck on the words, twisting and tangling on old language buried deep. The world goes distant and dark again as something sticky and foul smelling tips against his lips.

Far away, Geralt says something and the dwarf answers in words the swill like thick fog around Jaskier’s head.

 _Brokilon_ the fog whispers. _Get back,_ it calls.

Jaskier tries to scream but the sound catches in his throat, tugged down by relentless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! It's honestly taken me so long to sort out what's happening with this chapter let alone the rest of the fic, but i've already started writing the next chapter so hopefully it won't be too long until the next update. 
> 
> thanks for reading & for all the love on the first chapter x

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! come and scream with me [on tumblr](https://ceraunos.tumblr.com/) x also, I watched not one, not two, but three videos on how to re-shoe a horse in aid of this.
> 
> _(kudos comments etc. are always v much loved)_


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